Reconciling science and religion
Charles Rice
Right or Wrong?
One issue that never goes away is the alleged conflict between science and religion. Back in 1997 it even drew the attention of Homer and Lisa Simpson in a satire featuring the voice and character of scientist Stephen Jay Gould.
The controversy continues, with its focus on "Intelligent Design" scientists, such as William Dembski of Baylor and Jonathan Wells of the Discovery Institute, who claim, in Dembski's words, "that intelligent causes are necessary to explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology, and that these causes are empirically detectable. ... Intelligent Design is theologically minimalist. It detects intelligence without speculating about the nature of the intelligence."
As Wells put it, "people make scientific design inferences ... whenever ... we infer that words in the sand at the beach were produced by design rather than by accidental movements of the waves." According to Wells, "Darwinists insist that design is unscientific [because] design in living things would have to be the work of God, and God is beyond the reach of natural science."
"Science must recognize," said John Paul II, "its inability to reach the existence of God: it can neither affirm nor deny His existence. ... However, we must not [conclude] that scientists ... are unable to find valid reasons for admitting the existence of God. ... The scientist ... can discover in the world reasons for affirming a Being which surpasses it."
"Man is capable of knowing God by reason alone ... even though indirectly and not immediately," wrote John Paul II.
Can we really know from reason that there must always have been in existence an eternal being, who always was and who had no beginning? Yes. The alternative is that there was a time when there was nothing in existence. But if there was ever a time when there was nothing, there could never be anything. This we know from the self-evident principle of sufficient reason that whatever exists must have a sufficient reason for its existence.
As Thomas Aquinas put it, "That which does not exist only begins to exist through something already existing. Therefore, if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist, and thus even now nothing would be in existence which is absurd."
Think about this as you walk across the campus, drive your car or whatever. It can change your life. The film version of The Sound of Music had it right: "Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could." There must have always existed, from all eternity, without any beginning, a necessary being — God — from whom beings that began to be received their existence.
Similarly, if you stopped at a train crossing as the lights flashed and the gates came down and the only thing that went by was an empty freight car, you would wonder what was making it move. As Aquinas said, "whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another [which] also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity." At the head of the series of movers there must be a being that is itself unmoved and that is the source of all movement. This prime mover is God.
Reason can also tell us that there always was, and is, an uncaused first cause of everything that is caused. It is self-evident that every effect must have a cause. But that cause in turn must be the effect of another cause, and so on. But this, too, cannot go on to infinity. There must be a first cause that is not caused by anything else and that contains in itself the sufficient reason for its existence. That first, uncaused cause is God.
Apart from the Intelligent Design controversy, would you believe it if I told you that I got my watch by buying all the watch parts, putting them in a bag, shaking the bag and then reaching into the bag and pulling out the watch? On the contrary, the watch was obviously designed by an intelligent designer. How much more so with the human body, the world and the universe.
Through our reason, therefore, we can know with certainty that there always was — and is — God. We can go on to know through reason that God is one, spiritual, personal, all-perfect, etc. It is unreasonable not to believe in God. One who denies the existence of God must be prepared to say that an endless chain of movers is possible without a prime mover, that an infinite chain of causes is conceivable without an uncaused first cause, that something can come from nothing and that the workings of the human brain can occur without an intelligent designer.
"The marvellous `book of nature,'" said John Paul II in Faith & Reason, "when read with the proper tools of human reason, can lead to knowledge of the Creator." In abandoning the "basic rules" of reason, "the human being ... ends up in the condition of `the fool.' ... When he claims that `God does not exist' ... he shows ... how deficient his knowledge is and just how far he is from the full truth, of things, their origin and their destiny."
Prof. Rice is on the Law School faculty. His column appears every other Tuesday.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Tuesday, February 27, 2001
